U24CA268153

Metabolomics and Clinical Assays Center - Abstract (Metabolomics and Clinical Assay Center, MCAC)

Determining how individuals differ in their metabolism, and in their response to dietary intake, is critical to developing personalized intervention strategies for preventing and delaying the onset of chronic diseases such as obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer.

The MCAC will:
A) Acquire and process high-quality targeted and untargeted metabolomics data,
B) Prioritize, predict, and confirm the identity of unknown peaks,
C) Provide CLIA certified clinical assays,
D) Collaborate with the Common Fund Data Ecosystem,
E) Construct a data infrastructure which ensures fairness and enables interoperability of the data with other Common Fund datasets, and
F) Collaboratively work with the NIH Common Fund Nutrition for Precision Health (NPH) Consortium.

The MCAC brings an outstanding team of investigators from 3 UNC Systems universities that are co-located on the North Carolina Research Campus (NCRC) and Duke University. Dr. Susan Sumner (UNC Chapel Hill, Nutrition Research Institute, NCRC, untargeted metabolomics) will serve as the PI with support from expert scientists who specialize in nutrition and targeted metabolomics of host metabolism (Dr. Christopher Newgard, Director, Sarah W. Stedman Nutrition and Metabolism Center and Duke Molecular Physiology Institute), dietary interventions and targeted phytochemical analysis (Dr. Colin Kay, North Carolina State University, NCRC), CLIA certified clinical assays (Dr. Steven Cotten, UNCCH), and computational metabolomics (Dr. Xiuxia Du, UNC Charlotte, NCRC).

Our team provides a unique combination of long-standing expertise in metabolomics technologies, coupled with deep knowledge of nutrition, metabolic physiology, and chronic disease mechanisms. We are experienced with the application of targeted and untargeted metabolomics in large-scale clinical and epidemiology studies, including in other NIH consortia. We have used metabolomics to define metabolic signatures and pathways associated with dietary intake, nutrition assessments, demographics, lifestyle factors, microbial populations, genetics, transcriptomics, clinical assays, and clinical phenotypes of health and wellness.

We have developed comprehensive informatics capabilities for targeted and untargeted metabolomics and exposome research. We have developed an online mass spectral knowledge base resource for prioritizing and predicting unknown metabolites by leveraging publicly available data. Our high-quality MCAC datasets produced under fine-tuned protocols with quality control and quality assurance metrics will be essential for the success of the NPH Consortium.

The MCAC will provide data and expert biological interpretation in exploration of the heterogeneity in metabolism among study subjects, providing a roadmap that will help explain why individuals differ in their metabolic responses to dietary interventions, and what this portends for future disease risk.

The MCAC will provide a robust dataset to the Artificial Intelligence for Multimodal Data Modeling and Bioinformatics Center for use in the development of algorithms to predict individual dietary responses that can ultimately be translated for the design of targeted dietary interventions to improve health and quality of life.

University Of North Carolina At Chapel Hill

TO IDENTIFY CANCER RISKS AND RISK REDUCTION STRATEGIES, TO IDENTIFY FACTORS THAT CAUSE CANCER IN HUMANS, AND TO DISCOVER AND DEVELOP MECHANISMS FOR CANCER PREVENTION AND PREVENTIVE INTERVENTIONS IN HUMANS. RESEARCH PROGRAMS INCLUDE: (1) CHEMICAL, PHYSICAL AND MOLECULAR CARCINOGENESIS, (2) SCREENING, EARLY DETECTION AND RISK ASSESSMENT, INCLUDING BIOMARKER DISCOVERY, DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDATION, (3) EPIDEMIOLOGY, (4) NUTRITION AND BIOACTIVE FOOD COMPONENTS, (5) IMMUNOLOGY AND VACCINES, (6) FIELD STUDIES AND STATISTICS, (7) CANCER CHEMOPREVENTION AND INTERCEPTION, (8) PRE-CLINICAL AND CLINICAL AGENT DEVELOPMENT, (9) ORGAN SITE STUDIES AND CLINICAL TRIALS, (10) HEALTH-RELATED QUALITY OF LIFE AND PATIENT-CENTERED OUTCOMES, AND (11) SUPPORTIVE CARE AND MANAGEMENT OF SYMPTOMS AND TOXICITIES. SMALL BUSINESS INNOVATION RESEARCH (SBIR) PROGRAM: TO EXPAND AND IMPROVE THE SBIR PROGRAM, TO STIMULATE TECHNICAL INNOVATION, TO INCREASE PRIVATE SECTOR COMMERCIALIZATION OF INNOVATIONS DERIVED FROM FEDERAL RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT FUNDING, TO INCREASE SMALL BUSINESS PARTICIPATION IN FEDERAL RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT, AND TO FOSTER AND ENCOURAGE PARTICIPATION IN INNOVATION AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP BY WOMEN AND SOCIALLY/ECONOMICALLY DISADVANTAGED PERSONS. SMALL BUSINESS TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER (STTR) PROGRAM: TO STIMULATE AND FOSTER SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION THROUGH COOPERATIVE RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT CARRIED OUT BETWEEN SMALL BUSINESS CONCERNS AND RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS, TO FOSTER TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER THROUGH COOPERATIVE RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT BETWEEN SMALL BUSINESS CONCERNS AND RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS, TO INCREASE PRIVATE SECTOR COMMERCIALIZATION OF INNOVATIONS DERIVED FROM FEDERAL RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT FUNDING, AND FOSTER PARTICIPATION IN INNOVATION AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP BY WOMEN AND SOCIALLY/ECONOMICALLY DISADVANTAGED PERSONS.

93.310 - Trans-NIH Research Support

National Cancer Institute (NCI) [HHS - NIH]

National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) [HHS - NIH]

North Carolina United States

State-Wide

Nutrition for Precision Health, powered by the All of Us Research Program: Metabolomics and Clinical Assays Center (U24 Clinical Trial Not Allowed) (RFA-RM-21-002)

Amendment Since initial award the total obligations have increased 3588% from $398,899 to $14,709,941.